


Desert Gods

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Series: Skin-changer [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-23 01:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4857341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes death is just a new beginning.</p><p>(Starts with F!Courier's death.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Desert Gods

They soaked her blood on the sand, strung her broken body on the cross and left it in the burnt remains of Cottonwood Cove, charred body in offering to the unfeeling gods of sky and earth.

The NCR men came too, saw her corpse and called it ‘scarecrow.’ Thought it warning from the Legion, but still breathed a little easier knowing she was dead and gone. Bitter-Root stayed a little longer than the rest, lips forming prayer for this final beat-down. Neither may live Khan any more, but she still died one.

But when news of her death reaches Violet-- Motor-Runner speaking soft, bringing gifts of Jet and Psycho to soften the blow, ever-keen of how Violet’s dogs circle close-- Violet’s laugh rattles up the bones of her throat, crackles through the air like heat-lightning.

“She walk long and bloody roads. Bled every bit of herself out on the sand. They think she’s dead? Ha.” Laughs to herself, thumbing a strip of leather bound about her wrist. Flashes sharp teeth at Motor-Runner. Says, not unkindly, “Run now. Big storm coming.”

The rain comes sudden in the night, washes down Violet’s throat. She catches it on her tongue, hears it drum silver off the roof of her trailer fort. Thumbs her wristband, thinking of all the ways her lover has already changed skins. Drug-girl, Penelope. Khan-girl, Angel. Lover-girl, Six. Always changing, but blood knows blood.

And Violet’s blood sings alive, sings electric in her veins.

Blood knows blood.

Violet laughs, copper in her throat and thunder in her ears.

* * *

 

She will never stop until she chases both Bull and Bear from her home.

She walked every inch of the Mojave and beyond, beat new paths with blood and sweat, knows the lay of each path and the twisting routes amidst the sand and mountains. Her name is still spoken in Jacobstown, in Nelson, in McCarran, the Strip. Her name is spoken even more broad than when she was alive, the shadows carrying whispers under the yawning night as nature pours its rage.

The wind carries her fury, and she maps the ever-changing land in her dreams.

Her breath is wrath on the wind.

Her blood hums beneath the sand.

She returns to the desert, one of the ancient haunts that reach farther than the bombs that broke the world. Because when the bombs fell, they woke other things. Old lore, older things. There is darkness in the bones of the world.

The earth come alive, razored stones slicing bloody ribbons. The Fort falls, Caesar choking as the dust flood his nostrils, a woman’s laughter crackling like burning flame throughout the camp.

NCR hears tales from the survivors, discount them as superstition.

Camp Golf goes next, a quake that rumbles through to consume Rangers and troopers alike. Earth buckles, trembles, careless as a flag on the wind. One of the campfires sparks up, and coals turn to burning eyes as the flames hiss, “ _Leave_.”

Tension mounts, static and panic flooding the radio.

House disappears, all his robots dead as the Lucky 38 disappears overnight, a shriek of tearing metal and cracking pavement as the earth crumples in on itself. Whatever secrets the old man held are lost beneath the rubble.

* * *

 

So they meet under a darkling sky, Bull and Bear with no mechanical army. Blood and bone against blood and bone. No Boomers to drop death from the skies, no Enclave remnants to waken vengeful ghosts in this final battle for the Dam.

Which does not mean that there is no death from the skies, nor vengeful ghosts.

But there is still always blood and bone.

The earth creaks alive, her laughter jagged flint and her eyes burning coals. Her voice thunders, crackles lightning as the sky breaks open.

“ _Leave_.”

Those not struck by her lightnings, by the howl of wind and the madness in the air, are swallowed by the earth. Yawning, melting, bubbling beneath their feet, a mire that only gapes wider the more they struggle. Nature’s fury from above and below.

Whether Bull or Bear, whether they wear red and carry the twisted recreations of a world long before the War, whether they wear olive and carry the bloated seeds of something that threatens to overgrow, to overreach and forget to plant its roots deep enough to sustain itself, they all fall.

With no body to strike, they cannot shoot-- they fill the air with bullets and machetes, blot the sun with panic, but one cannot bleed the wind or break the world.

(Not any more than the bombs did. Not any more than what Bull and Bear did to that broken body on the cross, than the scars that map her history.)

Bull runs east, past the river and beyond. Those who saw her body on the cross whisper tales of a woman who puts the Burned Man’s legend to shame. Fear clots their throats.

Bear runs west, past the mountains, out of the Mojave, a long train of soldiers and bureaucrats who still hear the ghost-crackle of laughter on the wind, who extinguish their flames at night because the fire sounds too much like laughter, the coals look too much like her eyes burning in the darkness.

Those who remain…

The Mojave was always her home, and she welcomes those who stay, rebuild. Those who love the land as she does. For them, the wrath on the wind dulls to something soft. The land is harsh-- always has been, never denies that-- but it feeds those who nourish it in turn. There is no longer Bull or Bear, no law beyond what the inhabitants make of it themselves.

But the trade comes back, life-blood of commerce. Safer than Legion roads, so they say. Safer than NCR. Any raiders who challenge the new way of life find the land turns against them, and her mocking laughter’s the last thing they hear before the wind scours their bones.

She is New Vegas.


	2. Universe in Hymn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On loving a goddess.

Morning comes in a burst of fire, orange dawn licking skywards over jagged peaks of cloud. Shadows still long on the ground, the between-times on the cusp of night and new day.

She’s alive in this early light, burning coal-eyes a maybe-mistake in the rising sun and shadowed hair still reflecting starlight.

“Ghost-girl,” Violet calls, hands stretched in welcome as the dogs lay in sleeping piles.

The woman once known as Six, Angel, and Penelope laughs in a crash of stars. “New skin, new name?”

“Last skin. Not last name.” Violet smiles sharp and jagged, like flakes of sea-salt. “They calling new names, now. Ghost-girl, Lady of the Desert. Lady Vegas, Earth-splitter. Calling you goddess.”

“And do they fear?”

“Shadows haunt them that got fear. Blood boils, cooks ‘em to sweat. Bastes them in guilt, them you didn’t kill already. But goddess is fear and love. Universe in hymn, war-song to them with the right kind of ears.”

“And do you fear?”

Violet’s smile breaks like the dawn. “No. You my Angel-girl. Fear not.”

And the maybe-goddess who once was a woman embraces Violet, kisses her hard and hungry, her tongue a blade that slices sharp-sweet on Violet’s mouth. A burnt scorch of caramel lingering on the teeth, and her hands like roving flames, like trying to devour Violet whole.

Their love is a violence, strength in the breaking-- and no matter how her lover’s touch burns, how the sky swims overhead and blurs the edges of the world, Violet trusts. Trusts her drug-girl, her lover-girl, to bring her to the brink and back again, to keep her in the forever-fall of lush sensation without burning her alive. Always tricky to love someone who ain’t properly there, even harder when she _is_ , when the ghost-girl’s breath rasps like desert sand and her tongue is a wash of sunlight, a press of thighs (warm, physical, _real)_ even as her shape mirage-shimmers in the early morning. Violet gasps, open-mouthed as the wind chills her to the marrow and her lungs fill with cinnamon, her mouth waters habanero honey and she’s breaking, body awash and spraying like a kick of dust.

But her lover brings her back with an incandescent kiss on Violet’s thigh, a nibble like pebbles digging in flesh. The mark sears bright in the shadow, gleams silver under the sun.

After, Violet rips into a hard loaf of bread and slices prickly pear. Cooks up a little kettle of oats, raising an eyebrow as her dead lover’s outline wavers in the strengthening sun. Still barely-there, like a heat-shimmer on cracked pavement, a hint of bitumen rank in the back of her throat.

“Do ghosts get hungry?”

“No. Least-wise, not for that kind of food.” She sighs, wistful, the burn of her eyes softening to nothing but a subtle glimmer, like a firefly against the moon. “The real strong things, maybe-- can hardly taste a thing unless it’s charred.”

“Burnt offerings,” Violet grunts, biting off a chunk of jerky. She gnaws, breaking it near-even, and tosses half in the fire. The dogs whine, circling, but the dead woman’s eyes blaze fresh as she kneels amidst the flames, mouth open and breathing deep as if to gulp the smoke.

Violet can’t give her orgasms, but at least she can give her offerings.

Over the next few weeks, Violet learns to get what she needs-- hails caravans and trades jerky and hides for the things she cannot make herself. Even the traders who’d normally shy away from a Fiend boss, nails dark with old blood and teeth filed to jagged points, learn to barter. The new Lady Vegas keeps the roads safe from raiders and slavers, and the old ways are changing-- people can start to afford a little trust on the moon-lit paths, the desert winds whispering safety across the sand.

And Violet learns to use words again, to fumble and trade. Because her lover-girl can get these things on her own, maybe, but gifts are important. Violet can’t kiss her mouth wet and parched, can’t suck hard on the swell of skin or slide a finger down her lover’s pants, not any more than she can caress the starry constellations.

She learns to favor strong drinks-- her lover-girl can just barely taste whiskey, ragged on the back of her throat, apple-scented moonshine and juniper liquor. Wines only work if they are oak and velvet, so deep the tannins pucker Violet’s mouth, but it’s worth it for her lover’s star-lit smile, the way the desert lulls peace in her bones. The closest her Angel might come to _feeling_ once more.

How does one comfort the wind, the yawning vastness of the night sky?

Violet trades precious meat and leather, sifts through dusty memory for old recipes. She brings a blend of spice to boil in milk and water, infuses with strong black tea. Stirs in honey, and wafts the steam in skyward prayer, old words rolling off her tongue. Lullaby-chant in a childhood dialect that might well die out when she does. The desert wind moans content, and the world spills possibility as color bleeds around the edges of sky, as the night warms to a lover’s embrace. None of her lover’s past selves got to taste this brew while alive, but better late than never.

“Did it hurt?” Violet asks, coiled around one of Six’s old shirts, a bundled mass that still smells faint and sage-sweet under the tang of old sweat. Closest they can come to corporal, some nights.

“Did what hurt?” asks that voice that rustles the wind, pools in the darkness behind Violet’s closed eyes. Violet can see her better with eyes shut, blue flame that bends reality around her. Or maybe a greater gravity, distorting space.

“Dying.”

The subtle scent of scorched flesh underlines her words, like old scars. “No more than anything else.” A ripple, a shudder in the night’s texture, and one of Violet’s dogs lets out an uneasy whine. “No less, either.”

“How does it feel now?”

She pauses, this desert that was once a woman, and her voice aches weary as a long trek on a hot day. “Different. Distant. I feel more deep, but not as sharp-- I can feel a nightstalker clutch hatching in their den, new lives breaking shell. I feel the sand washed over my bones, plates shifting beneath the earth. I go down far enough, I feel the lingering birth-heat of the world.” Her sigh rattles the night, like dead trees swaying. “It’s not that I don’t feel, but if I felt it all at once, I would go mad.”

And Violet thinks she feels the shape of it, weighs like smoke in her lungs. Time and death aren’t so far apart; both like a river, smoothing jagged pains. Pain remains stone-heavy, but more easily carried.

Future’s still unwritten, how many legends Penelope-Angel-Six are going to live in. How much history the stories will distort, warp and crack like charred bones. But for now Violet rests under the warm mantle of the night, desert music alive with heart-song and blood-drum. She sleeps through a cotton-candy sunrise, wakes to a world still pink with lingering sweetness.

Future’s too much to worry about. So Violet lets the morning sun kiss her cheek, spreads her arms wide to embrace the world. Folds this sweetness into her flesh and fattens up against any bitter the future may bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of this chapter borrowed from TC Mill's "Mistress of Victories" in the [New Smut Project's "Heart, Body, Soul."](http://newsmutproject.tumblr.com/post/114150194599/anthologies-now-up-for-sale)

**Author's Note:**

> Can be considered an AU/alternate ending to the rest of the Skinchanger series.


End file.
